At What Price Art? Affective Instability Within a Visual Art Population

• Published in: Creativity research journal 1999-01, Vol.12 (1), p.15-23
• Main Authors: Frantom, Catherine, Sherman, Martin F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1040-0419; 1532-6934
• DOI: 10.1207/s15326934crj1201_3

Relations between levels of affective instability, creativity, and family history of affective illness were tested among 54 visual artists from the fine art disciplines of a prominent visual art college. Affective instability was measured by the General Behavior Inventory (Depue, Krauss, Spoont, & Arbisi, 1989); creativity by the Khatena-Torrance Creative Perception Inventory (Something About Myself [SAM] and What Kind of Person Are You?; Khatena & Torrance, 1976) and the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS; Zuckerman, 1975; Zuckerman, Eysenck, & Eysenck, 1978); and family history of affective illness by an abbreviation of the Family History-Research Diagnostic Criteria (Andreasen, Endicott, Spitzer, & Winokur, 1977). Consistent with previous research on heredity of affective illness, a significant, moderate relation was found between family history and affective instability, r(48)= .28, p < .05, indicating that individuals reporting biological family members with psychiatric histories of affective illness were more likely to exhibit affective instability than those with no such histories. Significant relations also were found between creativity, measured by SSS, r(48) = .47, p < .01; and by SAM, r(48)= .30, p < .05 und affective instability. Furthermore, when controlling for the possible influences of age and family history, only the SSS was found to correlate with affective instability (β = .35, p < .01). When controlling for creativity, no difference was found in affective instability between men and women, supporting the speculation that there would be no gender difference in terms of affect among visual artists.